Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

SarahLucyD

FEESH - I am sick to the back teeth of being misquoted and made out to be 'thick' by certain previous posts on this thread (many of which were removed), and now yours. No I don't handle the company's PR by the way (though as I am a girlie you can be excused for thinking that I do as us girlies tend to do PR type stuff don't we?). Just what vague and incorrect statements do you mean? Plese spell them out. I used different terminology from some of the posters on here to start with but that was cleared up some time ago - so you dragging it all back up again really doesn't help matters. I do have grasp of the FITs - I simply call the new FITS generation & export tariffs to make it much easier to understand and that's how Andrej Miller referred to them when we met him in Whitehall, so he must be thick too. I know excactly what ROCs are and never once said that our panels would be eligible for them - I said they would be phased out with the microgeneration tariff (that I referred to as a feed in tariff because that's what the power companies called them). Further I never ONCE said that no PV panels are made in the UK - I simply said we'd not managed to source a manufacturer in the UK - I was then jumped upon from a great height by a certain poster - but I won't go into it because his posts were removed as they were deemed to be offensive. So please - get YOUR facts right and stop being so rude about me.

SarahLucyD

FEESH - And just to clarify why furndire's roof didn't appear to be suitable in the first instance - it wasn't clear that the house was detached, the surveyor who originally looked at it thought that it was a set of terraces (because it is very big) and that the applicant was the end terrace. It was deemed, therefore, that the roofspace wasn't big enough for our particular system. So, that wasn't anything to do with me not 'getting my facts right' either.

SarahLucyD

FEESH - I don't believe for one second that you would be so rude & personal about me to my face so why do you feel that it's ok to be that way on a forum like this? Perhaps it's because you are hiding behind your cloak of anonymity - FEESH.

I'm not hiding behind a cloak of anonymity - I have revealed my true name on this thread and my contact number and email. Perhaps you can reveal yours.

feesh

SarahLucyD wrote: »

No I don't handle the company's PR by the way (though as I am a girlie you can be excused for thinking that I do as us girlies tend to do PR type stuff don't we?).

I didn't mean it to sound like that, just that if I was posting under my company name I would be deemed to be doing the company PR, or at least would have to run anything I wrote past our PR people. Which is why I post anonymously...kind of the whole point of forums, or we wouldn't all choose silly names for ourselves!

SarahLucyD wrote: »

I know excactly what ROCs are and never once said that our panels would be eligible for them - I said they would be phased out with the microgeneration tariff (that I referred to as a feed in tariff because that's what the power companies called them).

OK I do understand that you got your terminology mixed up, but it's a bit of a booboo for a company to get things so fundamentally wrong, especially when you are putting yourselves out there and trying to set yourselves apart from the cowboys. It says on your website home page "This scheme is part of the Renewables Obligation that the Government has signed upto." which is a mis-representation of the RO and to those of us who do know about the RO, it makes you guys not 't look so good IYKWIM...it would put me off using the company and it has an effect of damaging the industry when communications are so inconsistent. I know this has already been done to death on this thread though and I apologise for bringing it up again - it's just the fact that it's on the homepage of your website which got me more than anything.

SarahLucyD wrote: »

Further I never ONCE said that no PV panels are made in the UK - I simply said we'd not managed to source a manufacturer in the UK.

OK if that's true, my mistake for not reading properly. Presumably you have your business reasons for not choosing the Welsh supplier, I'll have to respect the company's decision on that.

SarahLucyD wrote: »

FEESH - And just to clarify why furndire's roof didn't appear to be suitable in the first instance - it wasn't clear that the house was detached, the surveyor who originally looked at it thought that it was a set of terraces (because it is very big) and that the applicant was the end terrace. It was deemed, therefore, that the roofspace wasn't big enough for our particular system. So, that wasn't anything to do with me not 'getting my facts right' either.

I didn't comment on the Furndice situation, he actually cross-posted with me anyway.

SarahLucyD wrote: »

FEESH - I don't believe for one second that you would be so rude & personal about me to my face so why do you feel that it's ok to be that way on a forum like this? Perhaps it's because you are hiding behind your cloak of anonymity - FEESH.

I'm not being rude, honestly - I was just exasperated that the comms from this company are so inconsistent when the rest of us in the renewables industry are working so hard to make sure the public understand some very difficult policy complexities. (And there are lots of people on this board who do, thankfully, understand them, as it's quite a specialise board, which is probably why you got jumped on).

Although I am myself quite sensitive too and I can see why you feel the way you do about thinking I'm picking on you but I really wasn't (I have had a load of people dive on me in threads in the past too so I know what it feels like, and I'm not a complete cow!). But it is an open forum and I don't publish my real name for lots of reasons - I post about all kinds of things on the MSE forums, the whole point of forums is anonymity as it means people can talk openly about very personal things. I won't feel guilty about that.

This is just a plea - please please please can A Shade of Green review all its comms and PR materials just to make sure there is absolute clarity between the terminology used. The whole policy area is so complex and there are so many cowboys out there (NOT your company obviously) who take advantage of this complexity, so as an industry we HAVE to get it right, so that the public can feel confident about weeding out the wheat from the chaff - it will help put those cowboys to bed.

SarahLucyD

FEESH

NUMBER 1 - I never got my terminology "mixed up" - I simply used different terminology based on what was being used by the people I was liaising with (generation tariffs, export tariffs, feed in tariffs) and this was clarified and I apologised if my usage mislead anyone. However, now whilst still liasing with Whitehall contacts THEY ARE USING THE SAME TERMINOLOGY AS I WAS/AM. You are simply trying to demean me to justify your rudeness.

As regards the renewables obligation quote - that's what we were told when we met with Andrej Miller.

We tried to make the website homepage (which you are presuming I wrote - wrong) easy to understand by the general public and not get caught up in technical speak or technicalities as regards the legislation. Further, as we AREN'T SELLING panels to anyone, as we will never be asking for one penny off the general public, the people we deal with won't have to worry about the complexities of the industry - that's entirely our problem - all we are doing is renting peoples roofs to place our panels on them and let them use the electricity they generate for free - they just need to be happy with the contract that they will be signing. If they aren't happy, they won't sign. End of.

I note what you say about forums but I still disagree that it's ok to be downright rude and personal. I attempted at all times to remain extremely polite when this thread first started in November, despite some of the posts that were eventually deleted by the moderators, perhaps you didn't see them. Now I am simply dropping once again from this thread as I am once again tired of it. I find it quite aggressive and, yes, rude. I am used to dealing with people face to face and have never in my life had personality clashes as the ones I've experienced here. Face to face I doubt you would talk to me in the same way as you have 'talked' to me on this thread, because I am not the obtuse, ill-informed type that you are making me out to be, neither am I trying to make myself out to be an expert. That's not why I started responding to this thread in the first instance. I responded to this thread in the first instance because, due to supposition, initially there were posts about our company bordering on libel until our position was fully explained.

Finally, we aren't a huge company with a PR machine as yet. We are unlikely to encroach on your territory as we are operating entirely in the Yorkshire area. We are a close knit company formed by people who have worked together for many, many years and who have business experience in various fields.

daytona600_2

feesh wrote: »

I work in the renewables industry (not solar) and I can kind of see how this scheme might work. But I do wish the people involved, specifically Sarah who presumably handles this company's PR would get their facts right, as making vague and incorrect statements does not do the solar industry any favours at all and as has been pointed out, it's an industry plagued by cowboys so they need to really set themselves apart from the pack and gain people's trust.

Sarah seems to have no grasp at all of the proposed Feed in Tariff and also seems to be a little confused by ROCs (and these panels won't be eligible for both).

Also the statement that no PV panels are made in the UK is incorrect - there is a factory in Wales and I'm sure many more will crop up when the FIT causes the market to take off next year (hopefully). http://www.pvsystems.com/

made in uk - evem made in the uk stickers on products are not made in the uk
we have no manufacturing industry - this is britain
we are a service and banking country !!
assembled in the uk - pvsystems - powerglaz - sharp - coleshill
all the raw components - ingots/wafers/cells/cables/connectors
are made in china germany usa

Cardew

I am intrigued here.

For us mere mortals to buy solar PV systems to put on our roof, and be eligible for grants, we have to use an accredited installer. The going price as discussed elsewhere from these installers is £2,000 plus £5000 per kW.

So, at those rates, to buy a 3.3kW system that Shade Greener intend to install would cost us £18,500.

Now Shade Greener are to source, install, and crucially maintain these systems, for the income from FITs – bear in mind they are in Yorkshire which is fairly far North in UK and the systems do not have the output of those at a more southerly latitude.

Shade Greener will never release details of their business model, but personally I would doubt that it would be viable if the cost per system (including budgeting for maintenance) was more than 50% of the £18,500!

Makes you wonder what would be a fair price for us mortals to pay!!

I wonder if Shade Greener will ever get into selling their systems? Including an option for those ‘renting space on their roof’ to buy their fitted system.

Mcfi5dhc

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mech_2

daytona600 wrote: »

made in uk - evem made in the uk stickers on products are not made in the uk
we have no manufacturing industry - this is britain
we are a service and banking country !!

But we're the 7th or 8th biggest manufacturing country in the world by dollar value. Not bad when comparing to much more populous countries like the USA and China and even Germany.

assembled in the uk - pvsystems - powerglaz - sharp - coleshill
all the raw components - ingots/wafers/cells/cables/connectors
are made in china germany usa

Does that matter?

daytona600_2

we used to be No1 by quite a margin
industrial revoultion anybody

QUOTE=mech;28014099]But we're the 7th or 8th biggest manufacturing country in the world by dollar value. Not bad when comparing to much more populous countries like the USA and China and even Germany.

Does that matter?[/QUOTE]